Heart Shaped Box
by XWaltzforVenusX
Summary: She never thought she'd be back here; no, not in a million years. Yet here she was, back in America, back in California, back in Newport. Where he wasn't. RyanTaylor, post series finale.


_Well, it's not the second part to 'Cheaper Than Therapy', but its close… another one-shot (I really should stop). And again I seem to avoid dialogue, so again, I hope it's not confusing. Oh, and remember the word 'metaphor', so I don't get reviews telling me I'm really weird._

_Even though I am._

_Music: 'Heart-Shaped Box' by Nirvana off the album 'In Utero'._

* * *

She never thought she'd be back here; no, never in a million years. She had spent her entire life waiting, with baited breath and crossed fingers, for that day when she was free; of her mother, of this place. France had been everything she always wanted: cultured, refined, deep, so totally unlike here in every way possible. The people there were pale and dark-haired, contrasting sharply with the tanned and bleached inhabitants of this bitter and ruthless world. But she had ruined it. She had made another rash decision, another impulsive move, latched onto another person who couldn't save her from herself. She had married him, ran from him, hid from him, divorced him. Yet still, that wasn't the biggest mistake of her life.

_He_ was. She had come back here, that first time, five years ago, when she had been afraid and naïve, thinking that love could still be found, could still solve all her problems. She had come back, and he had helped her, and she had latched. Through that whole train-wreck, she knew she was doing it again, clinging to that part of her that needed someone to love, and needed someone to love her. Through all of her relationships, her obsessive need to have connections, she had never loved them. She told herself, all those times, for a little while at least, that she did. She told herself she loved Henri-Michel. She told herself she loved Jack. But she didn't. Why should _he_ have been any different?

But he had been, in so many ways. He had made her feel that swirling rush of emotions, making her mind flutter and her body shake, even when he wasn't near her. Just thinking about him had made her dizzy, made her breath hitch, made her stomach clench. He was perfect, and he was hers, and for the first time in her life, she knew what it was like to be loved. Really loved, not the faux-romance that had spilled out of Henri-Michel's mouth like a waterfall of insincerity. For the first time in her life, she had been comfortable in her own skin, confident in her own mind, strong in the knowledge that someone loved her, and that she was worthy of it.

It had been all for nothing. They had tried, _she_ had tried, harder than she had ever tried at anything else, but it hadn't worked. She had returned to Paris, and he had stayed, and that was that. They couldn't make it work, thousands of miles apart, an ocean of silence and pain between them. How could they make it work, when they barely worked together in the same town? Their whole relationship had been one shaky lurch to the next, each upset throwing them into discord, each upset drawing them deeper into each other.

He had ruined her. All these years, all this time, and she had made little progress in the fight to recover. He had cut open her chest with ruthless precision, gripped the painfully beating organ inside and tore it out of her, leaving behind a heart shaped box that was in no way capable of human emotion. She was a shell, empty and blank, devoid of the life and sparkle that had made him fall for her in the first place. He had kept that, her sparkle, ripped it from her when he left her. She wondered if he used it, her light. Did he take that happiness from her and eat it? Consume it? Make it part of himself? Was he happy? She tried to hope no, hope that he was miserable. She tried to hope yes, hope that he had found happiness without her. But all she could do was feel nothing. The consequences, she assumed, of having a piece of rusty tin where her heart should be.

She never thought she'd be back here; no, not in a million years. Yet here she was, standing with the cold sand beneath her feet, wind whipping her hair across her face, smell of salt choking her with its horrifying familiarity. She was back. Back in America, back in California, back in Newport.

Where he wasn't.

He was in Berkeley, with his family, his oh-so-perfect family; a father that loved him, a mother that cared, a brother to bond with, friends to love. She had nothing. Her father was somewhere; she hadn't seen him in over a decade. Her mother was an emotional terrorist; she hadn't seen her in four years. She had no siblings. She had no friends, because she didn't belong anywhere. She didn't belong in France, and she certainly didn't belong here. Not since he had clawed his way inside her and bled her dry.

Some memory in the back of her mind dimly warned her that it was time to leave, time to go and face the music. Face the people she had once been accepted by. Face him. She didn't know why she was here, except that she had nothing better to do than attend the Cohen-Roberts wedding. That and the fact that she was maid-of-honor. How that had happened, she had no idea; apparently Summer hadn't been too keen on any of the G.E.O.R.G.E. girls, and considered her the closest thing to a best friend.

So she left that Newport beach, getting in her car and driving the long distance to Berkeley, hardly aware of the time consumed by the trip. It would have been easier to fly, but she was sick of flying; it reminded her of that first plane ride after him. After he had crushed her. So she drove, letting the roar of the engine and the quickly passing scenery lull her into a dull state of calm. She made it with time to spare, like she had known she would.

The bride greeted her with enthusiastic words and crushing hugs, the groom with misplaced sarcasm and wary words. The best man greeted her with silence and guilt, doing nothing to fix the rotting puncture in her chest that was his fault to begin with. She greeted them with a dull voice and a smile that didn't reach her eyes. Five years and he was still the emotionally distant loner, and she was still the falsely cheerful little girl. Except this time, she had something new, that new accessory she carried inside her chest, that he had given her.

Dinner was as awkward and terrible as she expected it to be, with crushing silences and faked laughter. Even the little four year old girl couldn't be cute enough to break the tension, although she tried, sensing that something was wrong with her big brother from the way he stared at his plate, never once looking up.

She tried to be normal, telling the family that had once taken her in all about her days in Paris, telling them of European adventures she made up on the spot. She couldn't tell them that Paris had been nothing to her, not after _him_, not after he slashed her open and watched her life pour out. So she regaled them with made up stories, telling them of places she had only read about, people she had only watched on TV.

He followed her to the kitchen after dinner, where she was cleaning up, washing the leftover food off the plates and watching it swirl disgustingly down the drain. He tried to apologize, to make excuses, holding his blood soaked hands up in defense of his actions. She told him it didn't matter, she was over it, she didn't feel anything, and it wasn't a lie. She didn't feel anything. Apparently he still knew her well enough to catch her meaning, and it only made him apologize more, making that little metal container in her chest grow colder and more achingly painful with every word that tumbled from his beautiful mouth.

His beautiful mouth - it had whispered so many things to her over these years, some funny, some witty, some happy, but most gut-wrenchingly painful. The hurried _I love you's_ had turned into _I'm sorry_'s had turned into _I can't do this anymore._ And now here she was again, four years later, listening to the same words, watching his mouth form the same shapes, except they held such different meanings than before. Before, back then, four years ago, they had meant _I'm sorry, but I think we need to break up,_ but now, right here, they meant _I'm sorry, but I'm still in love with you_, and then he did it. He held out his hand to her, held out her heart, still dripping blood slowly onto the white tile below, still beating dully in his hand, still convulsing with the idea of another chance.

Should she take it? Should she reach out and take her heart back? The hole was still there, she would just be able to place it back in, gently, and let him stitch up the wound he had made four years ago, but her head screamed a warning, a high pitched _no!_ that set off all her alarms. Her head screamed no, and her heart said nothing, because she didn't have it anymore - it was lying in his hands, waiting for her to take it back, but totally useless in her decision right now. Why should she take it back when he would just ruin it again? He had, she knew, ruined her, taken her naivety away, dragged her innocence through the dirt. He had told her he loved her, like all the others, but he had made her love him, and he had taken it all back, taken it away, taken her belief that love was a good thing.

She looked up into his face as he waited for her, with eyes wide and arm outstretched, still offering her beaten and bruised heart back. She shouldn't take it, she knew it, her entire body except for the heart-shaped void, screamed it, screamed _no_, screamed _get away from him_. But her own hand was reaching out, and she felt her fingers brush the organ, slippery and slick with her blood, and she picked it up gingerly. Slowly, ever so slowly in case he changed his mind, she reached into her chest, pulled out that heart-shaped box and placed her heart back where it belonged. It was uncomfortably warm inside her, the feeling of its soft beats unfamiliar, the pumping of the blood through her body unwelcome because it was bringing back all those feelings her tin heart hadn't let in.

He kissed her, standing in that kitchen, with her chest open wide and her eyes filling with the strange sting of tears. She was open and exposed, just like she had always been around him, unable to hide, unable to play games, and he was pushing his way back in again. For four years she had kept him out, with a wall of metal surrounding her, and in less than four hours he was in, hands running over her desperately, trying to fix the body he had torn apart four years ago.

And it was working, better than she ever thought it would, closing the hole in her chest, filling her veins with blood again, filling her nerves with feeling. She was lightheaded and dizzy, only distantly recalling that she needed oxygen to live, but he remembered, breaking away from her and panting heavily. He placed his hands, now clean of her blood, on either side of her face, and told her breathlessly all the things she never thought she'd hear again, the _you're so amazing_'s, the _I love you_'s, the _I can't live without you_'s, and suddenly she was whole again. She was whole, and full, and filled with emotion, and it was too much to handle.

Tears that had been held back for four years spilled forth in a cascade of pain and sorrow and hope, running down her face, soaking his hands, filling her mouth with the taste of salt, and then the taste of him was back, lips crushing against hers painfully. It was desperate with built up need, collected from the years spent apart, the years wishing they weren't. He offered her that life, that love, back, and she foolishly jumped in.

He took her into the dining room, where the bridal party waited, on the edges of their seats, tense in the knowledge that he had gone after her. She came out crying, but his arms were around her, and they knew what had happened, and they relaxed back into their chairs, relief making them weak. The tension was gone, and they stood up, greeting her with open arms, like their first reunion hadn't happened. She was embraced by four people who loved her, who accepted her, and it felt like home, like nowhere ever had before. She sat at the table again, and they sat with her, and he kept his hand firmly on her waist, and they ate desert, the pastry sickly sweet, but oh so delicious, in her mouth, and she knew that she was home.

_

* * *

_

review


End file.
